


Who Lives, Who Dies...

by ThatOddNerd



Series: And Those We Left Behind [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Family, First Star Wars fic, Force Ghosts, Luke is Rey's dad, Major character death - Freeform, written to deal with sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 10:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9177421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatOddNerd/pseuds/ThatOddNerd
Summary: First Star Wars fic. Wrote it to help me deal with Fisher's passing for the most part.His sister was gone, died defending someone in a very Leia manner, and now...now Luke can feel the Dark Side tugging at him, telling him all the things he could have if he came to it, the family he'd lost...Rey has gained and lost too much to lose her father too, and talks to him.





	

* * *

 

She’d given him the hair pins as a joke.

_“Your hair is getting long.” She commented one day as they ate breakfast on the balcony of her suite. Despite her blooming romance with Han, she’d insisted they have breakfast, just the two of them, twice a week at the very least, in order to get to know each other better. Han wasn’t thrilled at first, but with Leia’s eye roll and reminder ‘He’s my twin brother Han, get a grip.’ He stopped lurking nearby while they ate._

_“Yes, well…” Luke shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. They’d had an open go-between from the beginning, starting before they knew they were related. Now that they were aware of the relation, not much had changed. But being in this grand place with all these important officials and knowing his sister was such an important figure had made him…self-conscious._

_“I’m not criticizing.” Leia started, seeing a creeping blush on his face. “Just commenting. I didn’t mean…”_

_“No I know. It’s…”_

_“Have people been criticizing you for your appearance?”  Leia put down the cup of tea she’d been about to drink, her eyes growing steadily more angry._

_“No…well…people stare.”_

_“I can’t believe this. I’m going to…” Leia moved to get out of her chair, and Luke could feel the anger and indignation within her. Despite being touched at her reaction, he knew that Princess Leia going on a war path because some people looked at her twin funny would get some whispers._

_“Leia…” She sat back down, now giving him a slightly annoyed look, but acquiescing to his internal plea to let it go._

_“I don’t know what they expect. You’re a rebel from a desert planet. Not some dignitary from Alderaan.” Leia huffed, snatching the last biscuit from the plate, cutting it in half, and putting butter and jam on it before looking over at her brother and seeing the amused look on her brother’s face. “Oh shush.” She reprimanded, before slicing the biscuit in half and handing it to him without more comment. He laughed and sat back in his chair, watching his sister chew her food with a pout still in place. When they finished, Luke moved to get up before sensing his sister wanted him to stay sat, and looking at her curiously. She smirked, held up a finger, and then reached back to her hair, undoing the intricate swirls and pulling out three silver and orange colored hair pins. She then leaned over across the table and put them in front of him where his plate had say just a minute prior._

_“Yes Leia, they’re lovely pins.” Luke commented, knowing what she was getting at but attempting to annoy her. It was his right as her brother after all._

_“Funny.”_

_“Well it does seem to run in our family.”_

_“Clearly.” Leia stood up from her seat and turned to go inside, stopping just a few feet away. “Keep them.”_

_“You cannot be serious.”_

_“Oh but I am.” She began, turning her head back to look at him. “Next time someone stares, you can whip those out, put your hair up, and then they will be rightfully put in their place.” Leia cackled as she dodged a grape thrown her way and ran into her room. Luke eyed the silver and orange pins, an elegant design with the gems inlaid within the silver bars, not terribly flashy, but he was sure they were rare. They were also small enough to keep in one of his pockets. Call it sentiment, call it the affection he’d grown for his sister, call it his want to latch on to something he never knew was there and holding it close, but something moved him that day to take the pins offered to him as a joke. And he was glad he did._

Now…

The nights on D’Qar felt all consuming and vast, despite the constant activity from being the Resistance’s base headquarters. He’d taken himself off hours earlier, a spare lightsaber in his belt, the pins, as ever, in a secret pocket in his robes, and found an area away from everyone, hidden in the trees, to be alone.

They had been separated during the fight, and there was a wrenching, terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach when he watched her run the opposite direction, intent on helping a section of their soldiers with a particularly annoying bout of Stormtroopers. He almost called out to her, but Rey shouted for his assistance, and…well…

His duties as a fellow member of the Resistance and as a parent outweighed his duties as a brother at the time.

He did not regret the choice to help his daughter rather than go after his sister, but he had many more regrets.

The Force…what had the Force gotten them?

The Force was the reason he had life. His father was a product of such, therefore in turn he was a product of it as well.

_The Force also took away his parents. One at his birth, one decades later out of love and regret and anger. Although it could be argued that Anakin Skywalker died the day he joined the Dark Side._

The Force aided in reuniting him with his sister.

 _The Force was also the reason they had been separated to begin with._ That and a failing government.

The Force had brought to him Mara, and in turn given him Rey.

_The Force, or rather, the Dark Side of the Force, had ripped both away from him._

The Force had aided in bringing his nephew to this world, and then swiftly aided in his downfall.

_The Force had brought to him and aided in the destruction of his best friend, Han._

The Force had indeed brought him the chance to know his sister, to find the family connection he’d only dreamed of, and then that same entity cruelly took her away.

He’d felt it, when she fell. He’d felt the searing pain of the hit, a blaster gun to the back, during, of course, the calm of the battle, after it had become clear they’d won. A cheap shot from a barely alive Stormtrooper. Finn told him later that the dying soldier was aiming for him, and Leia… well, Leia was being Leia. The pain had been unreal, unlike anything he’d ever experienced, even compared to losing his hand he hadn’t felt anything so strong. As his body hit the ground, he heard Poe shouting and Rey screaming, and footsteps running towards him. As his eyes closed he felt a piece of himself die, and knew his sister was gone.

_He awoke back at the base, gaining consciousness before he opened his eyes. Something must have read and made a noise in the monitors before he opened his eyes because he heard scrambling, a chair back hitting the floor, and by the time he’d opened his eyes, Rey was right there, inches away, holding his hand and looking worse for wear, eyes red and puffy, looking like she hadn’t slept in days._

_“Ma…Lu…Father…father, Leia is…” He gently squeezed her hand back and nodded._

_“I know. Call it a twin connection.” His voice was hoarse and his mouth felt dry. He heard a noise on the other side of him and slowly turned his head to see young Finn, arm in a sling, pouring water from a steel carafe and handing it over to Rey, who helped him sit up before eying his hands and then looking back up to him, curious. He nodded and Rey handed him the cup, which he downed in a second, causing Rey to motion for the carafe and refill the cup. She did so three times before he could bring himself to speak again._

_“Mr. Skywalker, I’m so sorry. I should have paid more attention, I thought that Stormtrooper was dead, I…” Finn’s burst of unneeded apologies caught his still tired mind off guard and he waved his hand, motioning for him to stop._

_“Do not worry, please, Finn. This was not your fault. My sister has always been a protector. She did what she did out of her own will and it didn’t end well. This is not your fault.”_

That had been almost three days ago, yet despite his assurances, Finn avoided him. Rey assured him he’d done nothing wrong and made sure Finn knew the same, but he was experiencing survivor’s guilt, something Luke knew well, and needed space.

The Force was grand and the Force was undeniably cruel.

The Force had given him everything and just as swiftly taken it away.

For a brief moment in time he had a sister and a mother and a father, and the next second, he didn’t. For a brief while he had an aunt and an uncle and a life. For a scope of time, brief to him at the time but now he would give anything to go back and experience it once more, he had a sister and a brother in law and a nephew and a wife and a daughter and a purpose.

And then…not.

Unbidden, he felt _it_ creeping into his mind, the dark, enticing, horrendously tempting sensation that he’d felt and fought off for over two decades.

The Dark Side whispered into his conscious, gently placed itself at the perimeter. It whispered promises and desires, gave him images of his family intact, his parents, Mara, Leia, and Obi-Wan alive. His daughter and nephew happy and smiling.

He felt the presence of them behind him but ignored them. His sister, father, and Obi-Wan all shouting at him, begging him to push the feeling away.

So entrapped in this battle of wills he was, he didn’t sense her until she was twenty feet away.

“Am I needed back at the base?” he asked, her footfalls making no noise, but the intensity of her presence giving away her location.

“Yes.” She replied, sitting next to him on the flat boulder he’d parked himself on hours before, under a tree. “But I very elegantly told the people who need you to piss off.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course.” There was a minute of silence before she spoke again. “You’re ignoring them.” Rey said simply.

“You are too.” He countered.

“Ah, but I’ve acknowledged they are there.”

“Kiss up.” Leia’s Force presence was glaring at him, he didn’t have to turn around to know. Rey laughed at the expression on her aunt’s face.

“As much as I’d love to chat…” Rey began, turning towards the three ethereal figures behind them. “I think I can handle this.” Anakin opened his mouth to say something but Ben motioned for him to stop, and all three disappeared. “You need to push it away.”

“I know.”

“You say this and yet I can still feel it lingering in you.”

Luke sighed and pulled the hair pins out from the pocket of the coat he’d put on before he left the building he was staying in, handling them carefully, as if they’d shatter at the slightest roughness. He knew of course that was ridiculous, they’d made it through the battle at his school, the escape, his journey to the temple, and multiple battles since. They were as tough as their previous owner.

“When I was young I thought my family dead. My uncle would always tell me they were, mostly because he believed it himself. I thought my father was dead because that’s what I was told. I didn’t even…I knew nothing of my mother or sister. I didn’t even know I had one until I met her. Although there always felt…this tug, pulling me to leave Tatooine and… The Force has managed to give me everything and take those same things away with cruel intent. Such as it is with the universe I suppose…”

“The Resistance is going to be looking to you now that the General is gone. And you still have C3PO and R2D2, and I know BB-8 has grown fond of you. Poe and Finn like you a lot, and Chewbacca wouldn’t let you out of his sight for three days when we came back. You have friends still alive from the Rebel days, you are well respected and well loved.” Rey pointed out, repositioning herself on the rock to let her legs stretch.

“My family existed to fulfill some prophecy.” Luke said after a few minutes of silence. There was a laugh in his voice, but not of mirth. His laugh was of anger and sadness and regret, of the absurdity of his very existence. The Force was the reason he existed, and it seemed to treat him and his family like the lab rats they apparently were. “Of course we’ve simultaneously aided in helping the universe and destroying it, the family can be rather dramatic.” Rey smiled sadly, looking at her father with some regret, wondering what he had been like before, although she’d heard stories. She leaned back on her elbows and watched the night sky before her, unknowingly agreeing with her father in regards to how vast the skyline seemed despite the Resistance base being so close by. She had had dreams about him, she realized, when she was young. A young man with blond but greying hair, dark robes flowing in the wind or drooping from the rain. Her mother, a kind smile but more blurry to her memory, singing lullabies in languages she’d yet to hear again. She’d dreamed of her parents coming to rescue her and never lost her hope for that to happen. Maz had been right however; as soon as she had stopped looking, she found, and the emotions that ran through her when she had stood before her father, the connection coming to her fast, ran deep and confusing as hell.

“I had this recurring dream…” Rey began, eyes still on the horizon before them, although it was difficult to make out much in the darkness. “…It was of you and I’m guessing my mother, and we’re on top this stone building, I suppose it was a building at your school. We are having a picnic and you’re making funny faces at me and mother is laughing, and I was sitting in your lap. I loved that dream because I felt so at peace. I haven’t had that dream in years but…”

“The living quarters…” Luke began to add. “You loved it up there, much to your mother’s chagrin. We’d have little picnics up there on the weekend.”

 _These things could be once again if you came to us_ … the voice was smooth and relaxing, chiming in from the corners of his mind. _You could have it all Skywalker_ …

“Shut it out.” Rey cautioned, sensing a change in him once again. “Don’t…”

 _You could have it all_ …

“Don’t let it get to you.” Rey’s voice countered. “It’s lies and you know it. Nothing can undo what has been done. Don’t listen.”

 _You could destroy the people who have hurt you and yours if only_ …

“Papa!” Rey’s voice cut through the dark and startled him into standing up quickly, lightsaber at the ready, looking for whatever wanted to hurt his child. Rey carefully got up as well, picking up the pins he’d dropped on the surface of the boulder and moving slowly. “Papa, it’s alright. We’re alright. Put the saber away.” His eyes had gone black and she felt pure anger radiating from him, and it had terrified her. One of the most powerful Jedis in the universe was angry, had a lightsaber, and had a father that went to the Dark Side when he felt like he was going to lose it all as well…

“Rey… I …I couldn’t save them. All those children…I led them into slaughter and…”

“No, no Ren killed them, Ren and his…”

“It was my fault he was there to begin with!” Luke shouted, his eyes now filled with remorse and regret. “I could sense there was something wrong…something off… Leia could sense it too. We thought that he … we had a theory that something was manipulating him but by the time…Snope was clever about it, I’ll give him that. Turned my once sweet nephew into a…”

“Father stop!” Rey grabbed his arms and held them in a grip that was painful but grounded him. “You need to stop blaming yourself for that. You need to stop blaming yourself for what has happened. Snope manipulated him, not you. Ren killed those kids, not you.”

“I …”

“No, stop. I know, I know you have felt the guilt. I know you’ve felt guilty this entire time and honestly…honestly for a while I blamed you too.” She winced at the look on his face. It wasn’t hurt, it was validation. “I felt angry and tired and confused. I couldn’t understand why you would leave me alone on Jakku to… don’t, stop with that look, I know the reason now. It was hard to process but I understand. I understand now much of what has happened, and I need you to know, to believe this wasn’t your fault. Please.”

“I couldn’t save her.” Luke whispered.

“I know.”

“I couldn’t save my sister.” Luke began to crumble to the ground, but Rey caught him, lowering him down slowly with her until they were both sitting on the boulder, her arms still around his shoulders, and let the breeze of the evening pass over them for a few minutes, her head on his shoulder, supporting his own, listening to the sounds of grief.

“Tell me about her.” Rey dared to break the silence only after she felt his body still and he had moved to sit more on his own.

“Your aunt? Oh lords… there is so much to say. She was bright, brighter than anyone else in the room, in intelligence and presence. Han may have had the swagger but Leia had the gumption to back up the reputation. She was also fearless…” Luke felt a smile, the first real one in days, creep into his expression. “Her capture by Vader… when we walked into her cell the first thing she did was criticize my height…we’d snuck in wearing Stormtrooper armor… and then right after that she took charge. I doubt she feared much of anything except…” His eyes darkened and Rey could feel the guilt and sadness start to rise within him once more. “…except when it came to her family. I guess that could be considered her one weakness. Or rather, her weakness and her strength…I remember telling her I was going after Vader because he was on the same planet we were and he was there for me. He’d find me eventually and if it were at the camp… it needed to end. I needed to end it because it was the right thing to do and because he was my father. She begged me not to do it. She begged me to run but I didn’t. And then…then for a while, after we won, things were different. Things were good. We were reunited and we’d formed this ragtag family of misfits and rebels, and things…were nice for a while. We could feel it, a tension in the Force, an anger, a shifting… We tried to figure it out and yet we had been too blind, to unwilling to believe…She wanted me to take you and Mara and join them all at the base. She thought if we were there we’d be safe. We could regroup. But then Mara…your mother felt it before I did. This tide of dread. She barely made it out with you when he came back for me. I told her to run, I’d find a way to be right behind…I could feel pain and anguish and dismay from my sister, even from such a distance and I thought…I thought I would be the last person in this universe she wanted to see. I’d failed. I’d failed the prophecy, years later. I’d failed everyone. I failed those kids and their families. I failed the Resistance. I failed to see the signs. But most importantly…most importantly I’d failed her and I didn’t feel like I had any right to be around her in such a time.”

“She told me once that one of the main things she’d wanted at that time was to see you.” Rey countered. When she could see her father’s look of skepticism, barely visible in the dim light, she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, she was angry, but it wasn’t just with you, it was with everything. What she wanted more than anything was to see her brother.” Rey sighed before stretching out her legs again and slowly getting up, offering her hand to her father for him to do the same. “She loved you. She loved me, in the end. She loved the Resistance and what it stood for, despite the flaws. She loved her son. She did what she wanted to and you and I both know we couldn’t have stopped her from standing in front of Finn and that blaster.”

“No one could ever stop her from doing anything.” Luke agreed, taking her hand and ignoring the wincing pain from his joints as Rey helped pull him up. He was getting old.

“Come on, it’s time for some dinner. I know you old men like to eat early and all…”

“Oh is that how it is?” Luke asked, a smile on his face.

“That’s how it is…Pops.”

“Alright then Sugar Muffin.”

“Ew.”

“You started it.” Luke countered as they walked back to the base.

“He’ll have the universe on his shoulders soon enough.” The Force Ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi appeared, watching Luke and Rey grow ever smaller in the distance.

“He told me once that if he didn’t make it back from a battle, I’d have to take over.” Leia added, appearing as well to watch her brother and niece. “I guess it’s his turn to be the backup plan. Although I’d hope he’d be more part of the original plan.”

“For now though,” Kenobi continued “he’ll enjoy some time with his daughter and regain himself before the final battles. Let us hope young Rey can continue to help him fight off the Dark Side. I’d hate to see what kind of damage Luke could do if he turned.”

“Yes…”Leia replied, her face scrunching at the thought. “Let us hope so.”

 

The End.


End file.
